Sapling 17 (Specifically Bond Angles)

[Ayesha Aslam-Mir 3C]

How would you determine the possible bond angles in the various structures? I had difficulty building the different physical structures; how would the three possible structures look in 3D space and how would their angles differ (or really how do the structures of the two non-cylical structures look and how would you determine those bond angles?)

[rachelhchem1I]

The way I did it is breaking it down. So look at each atom, and look at how many bonds it has with the other atoms around it. Very generally, 2 bonds is 180 degrees, 3 bonds is 120, 4 bonds is 109.5, 5 is 90+120+180 and 6 is 90+180. So, you just look at each atom and determine which different kind of angles are present to answer the question for a whole molecule.

[dana hu 1B]

its 60, 109.5, 120, 180.
60 is from the angle of the triangle rings, 109.5 is from the tetrahedral bonding arrangement, 120 is from the trigonal planner, trigonal bipyramid, or seesaw, and 180 is linear.

[Stephen Min 1I]

Usually you would look at each bond formed with the central atoms to determine the angles. As said above, the bond angles generally follow a trend as the number of bonds attatched to a certain atom increases.